Postcard from Zion

There is a bridge in Zion National Park where knowledgeable photographers gather toward sunset to hopefully capture a fantastic autumn photo of the Virgin River, some beautiful trees along its banks and a mountain known as “The Watchman”…and with some luck, some lovely pink-shaded clouds. Well, I was among the photographers for two nights waiting to capture the perfect image (The other nights the light and clouds were not good, so I did not stop).

One has to go early to get a good spot as the bridge fills up fast. Well, I was there for well over and hour both nights and did not get lucky. It looked especially good on one night, but the clouds disappeared just as the sun set. Anyway, I did capture a good image (but not great) that I will share with you soon.

But, while waiting for the sunset, I turned my camera around 180 degrees, set up on the other side of the bridge, and caught this image.  It is looking north into Zion Canyon. The river is, of course, the Virgin River. The mountain on the right is called The East Temple, and the two mountains that look alike are called "The Twins.”

I just wish I could have moved those clouds behind me near the Watchman. Then I would have had a image to die for. But this one is not bad on its own. I am just glad the photo gods gave something good to shoot that night.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

Postcard from Zion

Here and there in Zion National Park, one finds these small groves of trees with phenomenal color. Obviously, this is one of them. It is located a short way up the Narrows Trail. To get to these groves, one has to go off trail to take the photo. Of course, this kind of color only lasts a few days, so one must plan an Autumn trip to Zion with great care. For your information and future planning, this photo was taken on 11/14/11.

In Zion, during the height of the Autumn season, yellow is by far the most predominate color. Believe it or not, it actually becomes boring to the senses. Yellow is everywhere, so it is easy to become jaded by so much of one color. So when one comes across a grove of orange and/or red trees, one immediately wants to photograph it.

In this case, I climbed a small hill to get to this grove. Once inside it, it was very difficult to find the correct location to make a photograph because there were some many possible locations…all within a few feet of each other. So, as you might imagine, I have several shots of this place. This was the first one I developed in the digital darkroom.

Next time, I promise to show you a photo of some of the sweeping vistas of Zion. Trust me, I have lots of them. 

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

Postcard from Zion

This photo shows the reason why my friend Dave and I chose to go to Zion National Park in November….color, color, color…Autumn colors mixed in with the range of colors of the Zion mountains.

This was one of the early photos I took along the Virgin River at a rock formation named “The Organ.” In a future photo you will see why it got its name. The other rock formation in the upper left part of the photo is the lower portion of “The Great White Throne.”

Here is something you can stick in your future file if you ever plan to visit Zion in Autumn: the best colors are located at the north end of the canyon where the road ends at the beginning of “The Narrows” trail. From the parking lot all the way up the narrows, the colors are absolutely amazing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, all of Zion Canyon is beautiful in November…and there are special places of intense color everywhere…some more hidden than others. But the highest concentration of red, orange, yellow and green are at the end of the canyon.

When we arrived on Zion on November 11, we came through Carmel Junction, which means we arrived in the high country of Zion, then descended into the canyon. By this date, most of the color in the high country was pretty well played out. So keep that in your file also.

Now, if you remember the last blog I did, the photo of Bryce Canyon in the snow, you may wonder why there is snow  in Bryce, but not in Zion. The answer is simple: even though the two National Parks are less the 100 miles apart, Bryce is at 8,000 feet while Zion sits at 3,500 feet.

I took lots and lots of photos on this trip, so I will be showing more of them here as time goes by. When you see color as amazing as this, you can’t stop shooting. So, I have lots of work ahead of me in the digital darkroom. So stay tuned…

Postcard from Bryce Canyon

I was not supposed to take this picture…but obviously I did. My friend and fellow professional photographer Dave Forster were on our way from Tucson to Escalante, Utah on an eight day photo road trip. To say it was a great trip would be an understatement. But, I digress.

We spent the first night in Flagstaff, AZ, as we had a late start from Phoenix (Dave flew in there from Seattle). In Flagstaff, there was a fair amount of snow on the ground from a storm that morning. It was clear when we arrived in the evening, but temps were down in the low teens. A weird event for a guy like me who was in shorts that morning in Tucson.

Anyway, we drove north on day 2, from Flagstaff to Page, AZ, then across Lake Powell into Utah. A bright sunny day, but still cold. From there we went west, then north on Highway 89, running into snow on the ground here and there. From 89, we took Utah’s most beautiful highway, 12 east heading to Escalante. By now it was sunset. We drove through Red Canyon then climbed up to the turnoff to Bryce Canyon. At this point, there was snow all over the ground.

Originally, we had made the decision to skip Bryce as we both had a ton of sunrise photos.  But, with snow all over the ground, we changed our plans to come back to Bryce before dawn the next morning to see what we could capture with our cameras.

We spent the night in Cannonville, about a 25 minute drive from Bryce. Sure enough, we rose before sunset and headed back west to Bryce Canyon, which is at an elevation of 8,000 feet. It was cold of course, but we set up our cameras and waited for the sun to break the horizon. This was my first trip ever to see Bryce in the snow.

And obviously, I wasn’t disappointed. An as the sun broke the horizon, I took this photo. If you look on the far left, you will see a little lens flair from the first light of the sun. This was one of those five shot fast exposures, all taken a different apertures, then combined into one shot. I think it turned out rather well. I have more photos of Bryce in the snow that I will share with you over time.   

From there we went a couple of miles down to Ruby’s Inn for breakfast, then headed east again for Escalante and the Hole-in-the-Rock Road. Much more to come so stay tuned.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

Postcard from Zion

This is the Virgin River at toward sunset…taken on my last trip to Zion National Park in southern Utah. I shot this four years ago in Autumn, just a few days before Thanksgiving. It was nearing the end of the Autumn season.

I show you this one today as I am about to leave for Zion again to photograph the the peak of the Autumn season (I hope). That is my way of saying that I am heading out for one of my photographic safaris and won’t be writing this blog for a couple of weeks. I hope you will forgive my absence…but I need to restock my images (so to speak) with all new photos from this magnificent national park. I believe I am a better photographer now than I was four years ago, so I am hoping for some spectacular images.

My friend and fellow professional photographer Dave Forster is flying in from the Northwest to join me once again. We do this about twice a year and I always look forward to our adventures. If luck and the weather hold, we also hope to head further north to the Escalante region of Utah. We need a little luck with this part of the trip as the roads we intend to travel for our photos are all dirt and if it rains, they close. So we are crossing our fingers.

We will probably make some other stops along the way so stay tuned for some unexpected surprises as I take photos along the way and post them when I can. Don’t forget, I also have a camera in my smart phone so can post those right away (if I have signal). So take care of yourselves while I venture into the wilds of southern Utah.

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.

Postcard from Somewhere in WA

If you take Highway 25 north out of Davenport, WA, you will pass through some lonely farm country, small obscure towns and some of the best artistic photographic opportunities in the Northwest. Now, mind you, your mind must be prepared for all things old and rustic, and you must stop and look at places very carefully to find your best photo opportunities. It will also help to have a good post-processing software like Photoshop to make these images a little more interesting.

Highway 25 takes you by old wooden barns, both standing, half standing, or fallen down…by old abandoned vehicles (they are everywhere), a casino, and some beautiful scenery along the shores of Lake Roosevelt. And, if you stay on the road, you will eventually hit the Canadian Border. But it’s the rustic buildings and cars that captured most of my attention.

If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you’ve seen many many photos and digital painting of scenery along this road. And there are a few that you have not seen…yet.

This is an old barn that is much closer to Davenport than Canada, but darned if I can remember exactly where it is. A friend of mine, who has been on this road recently, said this barn is now gone, blown over by a major wind storm that hit northeastern Washington. I imagine some of the other barns along Highway 25 also suffered the same fate.

I took several images of this barn, trying to find the right one…and it was this one that had the most possibilities. By the way, I did very little to the window frame…like make it black and white. What you see is the real color.

If there is any lesson to be learned here its just that you should not be afraid to take a photo of something old and broken down. I took this photo over four years ago and it was only very recently that I decided what I wanted to do with it. All it took was some cropping and some creative solutions inside Photoshop. But, that is true with most of my images. They almost never come out of the camera ready for display. But the majority are still well composed images that just need a little help to make them pop. Welcome to the digital photo age!

(To see a larger version of this photo, just click on the image)

To see more of my work, both in photography and digital painting, please visit my website, www.corkrum.com.